RESIDENCE AT TARAPOTO 45 



On the declivities sloping to the Shillicaio and 

 too steep for cultivation there are other trees of the 

 primeval forest which flower along with the Ama- 

 sisa, especially the Lupuna (Chorisia ventricosa], a 

 Bombaceous tree with prickly trunk swollen above 

 the base, producing abundance of large rose- 

 coloured flowers, and a tree of moderate growth 

 bearing large panicles of rather small white odori- 

 ferous flowers (allied to Loganiaceae or Gentianese). 

 Some two months later a low spreading Bauhinia, 

 abundant on the rocky margin of the stream, 

 appears every morning sprinkled with large white 

 flowers resembling a Prince's feather in form. 

 I know not at what hour they open, but it is 

 certainly before daylight, as I always see them fully 

 expanded at earliest dawn. A Capparis which 

 often grows near it has large white inodorous 

 flowers which begin to open at sunset, and at 

 daybreak the stamens and petals are falling awa\ . 

 It flowers more or less all the year round, and tin- 

 Bauhinia does not go out of flower for full eii;ht 

 months. 1 



Tarapoto is situated in a large pampa or plain 



sufficient to render them inaccessible, it hangs them on the very points of tin 

 outermost twigs. All the species of troopial I have seen on the Amazon ami 

 Rio Negro show similar foresight in selecting a place where lo rear their 

 infant colonies; and the robber \\ln>, "I/serving no impediment from 1 

 ventures to climb to their eyrie finds to his cost that it i 

 large wasps' nest, or \>y hordes l stinging ants. 



1 [It is interesting to note ho\\ often Spruce mentions white flo 

 night-blooming, but these t\\o cases are especially interesting bccausi 

 opens in the evening, the other apparently during the night or 1 

 da\\n. This accords with the fact, communicated to me by 

 the Tring Museum, thai their moth-colld tor in South Americ 

 besides the species of moths ili.n come to light or to flo 

 principally up to about midnight, lie > spei 



probably an hour or .so before dawn till n< 

 moths are those which fertili early llo 



and shrubs observed by Spruce. A. K. \\ . | 



